PUBLICATION<a target="_blank" href="http://journalofscientificexploration.org">journalofscientificexploration.org</a> &nbsp; JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION • VOL. 36, NO 2 – SUMMER 2022<a target="_blank" href="https://doi.org/10.31275/20222463">https://doi.org/10.31275/20222463</a>HIGHLIGHTSA review of selected 'pop psychology' books shows that they do not inevitably contain misreported facts or findings from the original research studies they reference. This result suggests that negative sterotypes of such lay books should be reconsidered.ABSTRACTMany academic psychologists hold negative and stereotypical views about popular psychology books, even though there have been few formal investigations into these materials to understand their content, construction, purposes, or orientations, or their authors’ credentials. This paper explores the origins of these views within the Sociology of Scientific knowledge literature and psychological literature. Through formal case study methodology, an extensive review and comparative analysis of books with the psychological construct of “Attention” in their title was undertaken to determine whether the current delineations between scholarly and popular materials and those who write them are as clear-cut as they seem, or if an alternative model of the relationship between academic and popular psychology literature could be offered. A bibliography of 145 books was compiled, followed by what turned out to be an arduous and at times impossible task of sorting these books into either popular or scholarly categories. This revealed flaws in the dualistic nature of this activity that is often required of university students, instructors, and scholars alike. Six popular and six scholarly books (Table 3) revealed that while some of the popular books were less rigorous in referencing and representing experimental or original findings, they offered bibliotherapeutic benefits and were cited by others within journal articles, books, and dissertations across multiple disciplines, thus suggesting that popularization is not simply a trickling down of knowledge from the scientific arenas to the public, but that science can be informed by professionals with expertise in applied areas.Meanwhile, the six books designated as scholarly only had a collective of 14 Amazon reader reviews. This project’s findings have implications for educators, researchers, librarians, and journal editors who may presently disqualify useful materials without fully understanding them, and for writers seeking to improve in their research and writing skills.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.debrakatz.com/s/Dont_Judge_a_Book_by_Its_Cover_A_Case_St.pdf">Click here to access full article as a PDF file.</a>

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover: A Case Study and Comparative Analysis of Popular vs. Academy Psychology Books

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Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover: A Case Study and Comparative Analysis of Popular vs. Academy Psychology Books

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover: A Case Study and Comparative Analysis of Popular vs. Academy Psychology Books

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